Month March 2010

The opportunity here is not to do web search better than Google, but to find a way to index the information that lives on the iPhone ecosystem. With potential for millions of apps and hundreds of millions of iPhones generating usage patterns a separate mountain of information is emerging independent of the current cloud. The mobile cloud has different hooks and different relevance measures.

Mobile search will be as much about new algorithms as about getting a new way to spider the data.

It seems Apple is better positioned to leverage this emerging space than Google.

I think the iPad is the most important launch in Apples history — bigger than the Mac, iPod or iPhone. More than that, I think its the most important cultural phenomenon of this generation. Its bigger than technology.

“Apple has blown through the barriers with the iPhone, and the same thing is going to happen with the iPad,” said Kendall Collins, chief marketing officer for Salesforce.com. “This will be huge for business, and a major new category that will be a catalyst for many different aspects of the industry.”

“We expect this unstable period to last for another 2-3 years before expected user experience stabilizes and a more horizontal industry emerges,” he wrote.

In this type of market, Hall says, Google’s Android has a greater advantage in a horizontal market than a vertical one.

“We would caution investors against prematurely declaring Android as the winner as we expect the mobile computer OS platform market to be hotly contested over the next 2-3 years,” Hall wrote.

I would argue it will take even longer than 3 years for horizontal (or, as I call it, modular) architectures to become competitive.

The evolution of user interfaces is now so rapid that modes of interaction become obsolete before value chains have time to evolve.

The iPod continues unchallenged long after it over-served because standalone music players are no longer an attractive market to challengers, especially in light of the continued integration with a music service (iTunes).

Citing an unnamed executive familiar with the plans, MediaPost claims that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has been touting the upcoming service, rumored to launch April 7th, as “revolutionary” and “our next big thing” amongst his inner circle. No further details were reported.

I think it’s a certainty that Apple will introduce an ad serving platform for the iPhone (and any tablet) in 2010. This will amount to a checkbox that developers will check when submitting their app to the store.

He compared it to the era after sound first came into motion pictures. For a while many movies were more like filmed plays, until directors really learned to take advantage of the opportunities of the medium. For the iPad, too, “the medium is waiting for its Orson Welles,” Stengel said.

Never mind the gossip and tales of intrigue. Ignore the stories of betrayal and affairs. Forget the animosity and ego tripping.

No, the real reason you should be nervous if you are betting on Google long term is that Schmidt gave his first iPhone away.

By August of 2007 it’s reported that “Schmidt had long ago given up on the Apple handset because he couldn’t stand the on-screen keyboard. His wife had tested a prototype, but didn’t care to keep it. Schmidt, we’re told, ended up giving his iPhone to [his mistress] as a gift”

Here is a guy who has in his hands one of the first iPhones and he treats it with contempt.